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was that China preferred first to enter into bilateral negotiations with particular partners before assuming the open-ended commitment arising from accession to the Hague Conventions. With this impression in mind, I do think the UK might risk putting itself at a disadvantage if we simply content ourselves with awaiting Chinese ratification of the Hague Conventions, whilst other European countries (possibly the United States) negotiate their own conventions with China.
If a UK/China agreement were to set the pattern for such bilateral agreements this, surely, would be no bad thing.
To turn now to the questions raised in Miss Baile's letter of 23 December 1987 to Richard Fletcher-Cooke, I would think that there was no particular problem in concluding an agreement which was in form analogous to the France/China agreement. The UK/Romania Convention regarding Legal Proceedings in Civil and Commercial Matters 15 June 1978 (Cmnd. 7981) dealt, in the one agreement, with service of documents and the taking of evidence and I would not think that there was any technical difficulty in including in such an agreement provisions on the other matters covered by the France/China agreement.
As far as scope is concerned, I have no locus to speak for criminal matters but in respect of civil co-operation I would think that a UK/China agreement could, in principle, cover each of the subject areas of the France/China agreement. For the reasons explained in my letter of 10 December 1987, an agreement on the recognition and enforcement of judgments would need to be more elaborate than the France/China agreement since this does not contain agreed rules on the circumstances in which courts will be deemed to have had jurisdiction. To satisfy the requirements of the Foreign Judgments (Reciprocal Enforcement) Act 1933 we would need to spell out in the agreement such provisions of so-called "indirect" jurisdiction.
As for the first procedural step, this must be very much a matter for your judgment. It occurs to me, nevertheless, that we may not be ready to propose a draft text and it might be preferable at this stage to prepare a memorandum on the various subjects which we might wish to see covered in an agreement. This might prompt a corresponding memorandum from the Chinese which would serve to illuminate (at least to this Department) the relevant aspects and institutions of the Chinese legal system.
Pamela Major asked me, in paragraph 6(a) of her minute, for a form of words to be used in Miss Baile's speaking note. May I suggest the following as a first try: -
"The UK would be interested in concluding a bilateral agreement with the People's Republic of China to cover
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